EU Court Calls Employee Computer Monitoring A Human Rights Violation, In Some Cases

Australian ISP's Spam Solution: Block Gmail Messages

from the now-there's-an-idea dept

Thu, Apr 12th 2007 11:11pm — Carlo Longino

You might remember that some time ago, Verizon tried a novel way to cut down on the amount of spam its customers received -- by blocking most foreign email. Though it eventually dropped the policy (after a lawsuit), the company's anti-spam practices still leave a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, over in Australia, incumbent telco Telstra was blocking messages sent from Gmail, claiming Google doesn't do enough to stop spam being sent from the service. Rather than being a fair indictment of Gmail, this simply sounds like an admission that Telstra's simply not up to the task of adequately dealing with spam -- after all, it's hard to see how simply blacklisting messages from such a large email provider could really be seen as an adequate solution. If anything, it will just drive users away from Telstra's service and to Gmail.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

26 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Michael Vilain, 12 Apr 2007 @ 11:13pm

Why not just put Telstra on all the RBLs?
That way anything coming from Telstra would automatically be blocked.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
dorpus, 12 Apr 2007 @ 11:14pm

Australia's National Firewall
Will they outlaw messages that contain American imperialist words like "baseball"?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patti, 13 Apr 2007 @ 12:10am

Actually
My experience with Google (gmail and google groups) is that they don't do an adequate job of blocking spam originating from there. I get spam directly from gmail on a regular basis, and Google basically refuses to do anything about spam that they send to Usenet via their groups interface.

In the past, other large providers of free email (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) have spent plenty of time on blocklists due to being notorious spam sources. I can't see any reason why Google should be immune to this. Using RBLs, homegrown or otherwise, is an established technique for dealing with spam, and is certainly not an indication that an ISP isn't up to the task. Rather, it's an indication that the ISP is tackling the issue using industry best practices.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Robbo the wonder spaniel, 13 Apr 2007 @ 12:46am

Telstra, aka Bigpond, aka Bigpong, aka Bugpond, aka Cesspool are the kind of joke you'd expect in a monopoly driven market. This kind of genius hamfisted kneeJERK reaction is par for the course with Tel$tra. Theres really nothing surprising here ... move along ... ;-)

For some insight into the nonsensical happenings in ISPland in oz, check out www.whirlpool.net.au.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Infested Templar, 13 Apr 2007 @ 1:18am

Typical of Telstra
I come from Australia so I know how bad Telstra is and this sounds just like them. Telstra owns the basic telecommunications network but fortunately the ACCC (Australian competition and consumer commission) forces then to resell their services wholesale not much above cost, and to allow competitors to install their own equipment in exchanges as well, usually for ADSL2 etc just using the "last mile" of copper as you call it so we sort-of have competition.

Our family was on a $60 per month "Unlimited"* 256k plan (10GB limit after which you were shaped to 64k but this was publicly shown if not advertised and they are no longer allowed to call the plan unlimited anyway). I convinced my family to switch to a competitor reselling Telstra ADSL at $30 for 512k and 33GB downloads - half the price 3x the downloads, 2x the speed.... the competitor also responded to my email in 20mins on a Sunday compared to 9 days for Telstra.

Also with Gmail I it's spam filtering has been letting a lot more through (say about 15-20 per month out of about 3700) but I checked 50 of my spam box and none were from any free email provider I have ever heard of, let alone Gmail - typical results - private domain names only as far as I can tell.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
4playR, 13 Apr 2007 @ 1:28am

eh?!
I am a big fan of Gmail, so u may discount my opinion to about 60% of its content's worth. The thing is that my Gmail account, in spite of being in existence ever since Google started offering it, has worked just fine.

No spam, if u dont count the couple that trickle off the spam filter once every bluemoon. I do not know if any of you subscribe to a group and therefore the grp is compromised, but i can assure u i am a member of a coupple of groups myself, but have never recieved one single spam.

I dont know waht the fuss is all about. are u guys creating a big deal out of nothinhg? In sharp contrast, my Yahoo! account is totally screwed up with all sorts of junk, esp. Viagra Hawkers and people selling sex for free or sommat... but hell, by gmail works just fine. and even if u guys say that gmail's spam filter aint effective, i cont possibly fathom y u would want to compare it with Yahoo!'s spam filter cuz it sucks donkey's nads.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Infested Templar, 13 Apr 2007 @ 3:37am
  
  Re: eh?!
  Oh I wasn't comparing Gmail to any other provider, when I had Hotmail I would either have 99% of spam in my inbox or all emails except from contacts in the spam folder. What I meant was that it's been letting some spam through, maybe 0.5% of it compared to hotmail but to start with it let through no spam at all - and no false positives (not that it has false positives now but Hotmail certainly did)
  
  And to dorpus I actually played Baseball for a couple of years as a kid and although probably most Australians despise George Bush I suspect that is the same in the US, we are certainly not as anti US as the EU, if at all. It's just our monopoly telco being stupid as usual, I doubt they have the brains to realise Gmail come from the US even....
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Howard Lee Harkness, 13 Apr 2007 @ 6:48am

My solution to spam...
I have two domains (that I got via http://www.texas-domains.com, where I also got my other 10 domains), and I use gmail to get all of the email from one of those domains, then I get the filtered emails from gmail via the 2nd domain. The first email address is exposed to the public (list subscriptions, usenet postings, etc), the second is never used for anything else other than to fetch mail from the gmail account, and I have the filters in my Portable Thunderbird mail/news reader for the 2nd domain set to trash anything that DOESN'T come from my gmail account.
Pretty effective, and the best of both worlds. Gmail's spam filtering is about the best I've ever used. Offline, I have Portable Thunderbird's archive of all my important email and newsletter subscriptions, online, I have gmail's search facility and access from just about anywhere (other than work, which doesn't allow any web-based news/mail services at all). I haven't used any of my ISP's email addresses in nearly 7 years (during which time I've had to change ISPs 4 times), and having my email independent of my ISP has been a MAJOR convenience with minimal cost.
I got a few false positives for a while, but gmail's spam filtering (which I think is partially based on a Bayesian filter) has gotten good enough that I haven't seen a false positive in a long time. I do occasionally see a spam that slips through, but they are trivial to spot, and marking them works to improve future filtering.
--
Violins and Accessories
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Computer Geeks, 13 Apr 2007 @ 7:13am

That's so like Telstra
Anyone that has to to deal with Bigpond (Telstra's ISP) would not expect anything less stupid then blocking gmail. They have to be the worst ISP in the world.

The worst thing is that they own 90% of the IT infrastructure in Australia and are screwing it up for everyone.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Overcast, 13 Apr 2007 @ 7:14am

although probably most Australians despise George Bush

WTF does George Bush have to do with this?

Is it Bush's fault you're getting spam too? ROFLMFAO
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2007 @ 7:21am
  
  Re:
  because dorpus brought up the topic of america...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Andy, 13 Apr 2007 @ 7:22am

Never seen spam from Gmail
I personally have never seen any spam originating, or even purporting to originate from Google Mail, and I have had tons of the stuff in one email system or other. I'm not even sure how Patti can claim to get so much spam from Gmail as it takes some effort to identify the true source of a spam email, you can't just look at the claimed "from" address, that is easily faked.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- coward, 11 May 2007 @ 6:56am
  
  Re: Never seen spam from Gmail
  Received: from hu-out-0506.google.com (hu-out-0506.google.com [72.14.214.235]) by sienna.pobox.com
  (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4886898 for ; Fri, 11 May 2007 09:15:11 -0400 (EDT)
  Received: by hu-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id 31so1075871huc for ; Fri, 11 May
  2007 06:15:10 -0700 (PDT)
  DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta;
  h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:conten t-type;
  b=RA6b8MsNj4BCiYgcKAehyM09jDbgaS7eFCfGEJ1yDucbLuyQh2galCwdCj/6Kwswb+YpreXeC+rFiPIjs3TliFtVH UDyKRQYIUTJvX2QyK22tQetOl23+yxdgZ60F2bLxgvGGpOhsaczhjIA+q6TUaZrLezGWUUod5zaqEtAvSQ=
  DomainKey-Signa ture: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta;
  h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type;
  b=e+mn8kr7LK1E8bEsEl bCxdmqwTsMxn+R1jfQaz1qpS9+o2GaP9EngrsRKnq5idFbG6YFdrE7ULP+fW0wY8DJA6sb4mWZRUG5mWuMJ/BYNY03toRuqgaX2s oX1jlcQMiuuXvbLm+ZsAHgFyq7vZVbZQqhm8P2Oaa44dwiLQ9lUUQ=
  Received: by 10.82.118.2 with SMTP id q2mr5475550buc.1178889256577; Fri, 11 May 2007 06:14:16 -0700 (PDT)
  Received: by 10.82.158.18 with HTTP; Fri, 11 May 2007 06:14:16 -0700 (PDT)
  Message-ID:
  Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 21:14:16 +0800
  From: "Alice Alice"
  To:
  Subject: [!! SPAM] HELLO Dear friend!
  MIME-Version: 1.0
  X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3028
  Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
  boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0003_01C79422.C0A6E330"
  
  Would you like to promote yourself/your company through a very
  significant and innovative way?
  ...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
AlbinoRhino, 13 Apr 2007 @ 7:26am

How Retarded Is This?
This is idiotic. I have two email accounts. Both are with google. One is for registering things online, the other is for close friends and family. The only spam I receive is in my friends and family when they fwd me some dumb ass joke or image they find funny. Blocking a provider is ignorant. Have they blocked yahoo and hotmail? Why not just let people get mail strictly from their own provider and get it over with already.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Another anonymous coward, 13 Apr 2007 @ 7:47am

It's about the outbound, not the inbound
Remember, folks, this is about GMail *sending* spam -- there seems to be no doubt that its inbound spam filters are ace; it's the fact that it's happy to chuck out spam and then, when you send e-mail to "abuse" to get an IP trace, they refuse to cough it up. I've been there.

Of all the free e-mail providers, aren't GMail the only ones not to put the true originating IP in a header somewhere? Am I wrong on this?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2007 @ 12:33pm
  
  Re: It's about the outbound, not the inbound
  Of all the free e-mail providers, aren't GMail the only ones not to put the true originating IP in a header somewhere? Am I wrong on this?
  Yes, you are wrong.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2007 @ 2:23pm
    
    Re: Re: It's about the outbound, not the inbound
    Actually Gmail does let you look at the header to see where it comes from. Most other free email providers don't let you do this.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Jim, 16 Apr 2007 @ 1:29pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: It's about the outbound, not the inbou
      What the poster asking about originating headers was talking about is when email is SENT from Gmail. They strip the senders IP address from the headers. This keeps people that filter on the original header from checking it, which is very effective in stopping the kind of spam that GMail is used for so much these days...specifically Nigerian spam.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - coward, 11 May 2007 @ 6:57am
      
      Re: Re: Re: It's about the outbound, not the inbou
      No - wrong - gmail is about the only ISP that hides the true origin of an email.
      
      Send yourself one, and then try to find your IP in the headers. Gues what? google hid it.
      
      It's a spammers wet dream...
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patti, 13 Apr 2007 @ 9:26am

Outbound, not inbound
As anonymous pointed out, it's about outbound email not inbound. What shows up in the spam folder of your gmail account has nothing to do with what is originating from gmail. I manage a mailserver, and I pay careful attention to the inbound spam that it receives.

And yes, gmail is the only free email provider that refuses to put an originating IP header in their outbound email. This further hampers the ability of other mail hosts to filter spam originating from gmail, as they can't do originating IP-based filtering.

And yes, it takes some work to identify the true source of spam, but it's not terribly difficult. In fact, for those who can't read mail headers themselves, spamcop will do it for you with a reasonably high degree of accuracy. I was director of ops for an email company in a past life, so I'm quite competent at tracing my own headers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
codingace, 13 Apr 2007 @ 12:15pm

Get real
Telsta is an ISP and e-mail provider. They may not be able to "go to google" This article wreaks of cynicism and is missing facts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patti, 13 Apr 2007 @ 4:02pm

Coward, it's not that gmail lets you view mail headers when you use gmail. We're not talking about the gmail UI, but what gmail perpetrates on the rest of the internet.

Most free email providers provide an X-Originating-IP: header so that you what machine injected the mail originally. Gmail doesn't provide that on its outgoing mail, so if spam originates from gmail I have no way of knowing whether it came from an AOL IP address, an ISP in Hong Kong, or whatever. Other free email providers put this information into the header when they send mail, and this provides other mail admins with additional opportunities to block spam.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jim, 16 Apr 2007 @ 1:21pm

Out of date info, very out of date. Verizon no longer uses call back. They have not for some time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ody, 22 Nov 2007 @ 3:31pm

Telstra's just pissed off because Gmail is a bette
Telstra offers email services.
If the company decides to abandon a few servers, their clients find - No one tells them. - their email addresses are invalid.
Telstra does no email forwarding.

Along comes Gmail, where the service ismore reliable than anything Telstra offers; more features; and it's freely accessible anywhere on the Net.
Telstra will do anything it can to degrade or block Gmail.

In most western countries, such actions would be illegal. But this is Australia and Telstra's actions are supported by the Internet-phobic government.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2007 @ 3:44pm

I agree with Telstra when they say Gmail does not do enough to prevent spamming account holders. All i get from the gmail domain is spam & i get it everyday.
Why doesn't gmail clean up there act a bit? ..and why should Telstra spend time & money on cleaning up other people's mess?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Neil, 10 Oct 2008 @ 8:34pm

Gmail
Late to the party but I'd like to comment.

I'd say Telstra is just in its indictment of Gmail.

After a good start, my Gmail now is hit with a minimum of 10 to 30 spam emails daily.
In my main email account through Apple's superb program Mail I only see one or two rogue emails per month.
Gmail is utterly hopeless and nobody can give me any good answers.

Oh, and the poster 'Infested Templar' up there is like most haters, he just uses every opportunity to inject some spiteful comment no matter how inappropriate the forum. He'd blame George Bush for his ingrown toenail if he though anyone would take him seriously.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]